KevEdd: The Beginning of the End
by Flywheel Shyster and Flywheel
Summary: If you've ever wondered how Kevin and Double-D sneaking into a cafe's bathroom would go, this might be the story for you.
1. Oooooh, Myyyyy

_"This is a continuation of a document entitled 'Rusty Worn Nut'. It is not imperative that you partake in the reading of that story before beginning this, but if you reach the end and find that your life is a bit more confusing than when you started, you should most likely have read that one first. If you are one of our returning travelers, or have just returned from reading 'Rusty Worn Nut', you must by now know the safety procedure of keeping a firm hold of your mind as it can easily get lost in the following journey. Have a pleasant trip."_

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"So she said 'Ain't nothin' to it but to do it'!" Marie finished her anecdote and the table shook as she and Kevin exploded into a roaring fit of laughter. Double-D tried his hardest to swallow the mortified emotions the story had stirred up but failed to contain them completely as his face contorted in disgust.

"Come on, Babe; it's a little funny." Kevin elbowed his boyfriend playfully and threw a loving arm around his shoulders, nuzzling against the brainy Ed's neck. "I can think of a time or two when you wanted to get freaky in a similar way..."

"Kevin!" Double-D pushed the jock away, blushing furiously. "We have talked about discussing the more... _Intimate_ parts of our relationship in public!"

"Oh, loosen up." Marie leaned back in her chair and laughed. "I just told you how Nazz Leroy Jenkins'd me last week after Eddy's party!"

"Vividly so." Double-D looked down into his coffee cup; even being comfortable talking about sexual relations and such in private had been a long, strenuous journey for him and he felt that speaking of it in public would be a completely different ballpark on a completely different mountain to climb.

"Aight, aight; we won't talk about how you rock my world every week then." Kevin leaned in and kissed his boyfriend's temple, snickering softly. He loved it when his lover became all flustered. "So, Marie, things with Nazz going good?"

"Fuck. Yes." The blue-haired Kanker's face shone up in a bright grin. "If you told me six months ago that I'd be bumping uglies with the most popular girl in school, I would've socked you and laughed my ass off."

"Quite a left-fielder that one, I'll agree." Double-D nodded. Amazing what six friends, a bottle of tequila and Seven Minutes In Heaven can do to shake up your life. He did miss being able to use that closet though; twelve bouts of sanitizing later and he could still hear the moaning. Oh, the moaning.

"Gotta admit though, it looks good on you." Kevin said. He wasn't wrong; both Marie and Nazz had been looking and acting happier since they got together than he had ever seen them, something Double-D certainly agreed with.

"Yep, nothing makes you look better than a beautiful blonde draped around your shoulders." Marie said and stretched out.

"Hey, maybe you should go blon-"

"We're not having that discussion again, Kevin."

"I'm just saying, you'd look really cute if you-"

"I am no more inclined to change my hair style now than I was when you slobbered the suggestion into my ear the first time."

"Slobbered into your ear?" Marie interjected, half disgusted, half amused.

"He was drunk." Double-D stated flatly.

"He looked hot." Kevin countered teasingly.

"Are you incapable of a rational thought that doesn't concern my appearance?"

"Not for years, baby. Not for years." Kevin turned the brainy Ed's head and crashed their lips together, savoring the taste he'd come to know and love so much.

"Holy- Get a room." Marie stuck out her tongue in disgust and proceeded to look over her shoulder; where the hell was Nazz when she needed her?

"We have two as a matter of fact." Double-D said once he'd separated himself from his boyfriend, a shade of crimson decorating his face.

"We use them regularly too." The jock smirked and winked at Marie who responded by moving two fingers towards her mouth.

"Don't make me do it, guys."

"Aight, aight." Kevin laughed. Looking into his cup, he frowned slightly at its empty state and stood up. "I'm gonna hit the can and get another coffee; you guys want anything?"

"Yeah, I'll take a cup." Marie said.

"If the conversation continues down this path upon your return, bleach." Double-D deadpanned. Kevin punched his shoulder lightly and smiled.

"Two cups, coming right up."

Marie followed the red-head's back until he disappeared into the cafe's toilet at which she turned her attention to Double-D. "Hey."

"Yes?" Double-D looked up from the table; a sudden bout of exhaustion had hit him. Not surprising, really; half the night had been spent trying to dissuade Kevin from hot, steamy action and the other half had been spent being engaged in hot, steamy action.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"I can't see why not."

"Would you say you're a giver or a taker?"

"I would say the roles are very much- MARIE!" Double-D spluttered when he realized the information he was about to indulge her in.

"What?" Marie smiled slyly. "I can tell you how Nazz and I like to do the roles."

"I would very much be happier without knowing such a thing, thank you!" A loud buzz escaped Double-D's pocket and he sighed in relief when he could take out his phone. "Excuse me."

"Come on, Double-D; you gotta engage in a little girl talk every now and then, switch sex tips and such!" An elderly couple walking by threw her a mortified look and began to walk faster.

"I just don't feel comfortable sharing the most intimate parts of my relationship, Marie." He looked down and smiled when he read the text.

' _Meet me in the bathroom_ '

"It took quite some time before I was even comfortable speaking with Kevin about these sort of matters." Before Marie could open her mouth, Double-D had stood up. "If you would excuse me, Marie."

"Gonna get down and dirty in the can? Been there, done that." Marie shot him a wink and laughed. Double-D didn't answer, mostly because he couldn't think up a witty response fast enough for it to be effective, and walked in through the cafe, trying to look as casual as possible before ending up outside of the bathroom door. Finding it unlocked, he pulled the door open and stepped inside.

"You may shower three times a day but you are just a dirty little boy, aren't you?" A shiver ran down his spine when Kevin's voice appeared near his ear and the latter's hands began to roam all over his lanky frame.

"Well, if the last few years has taught me anything-"

"Shut up, Dork." Kevin growled and sank his teeth into the soft, delicate flesh of Double-D's neck. Double-D moaned. "I said shut up!" A hand stopped just short of the hem of Double-D's pants as a punishment and he whimpered.

"Please."

"What was that?" The hot breath of the whisper crashed against Double-D's shoulder.

"P-Please, continue; I'll be quiet."

"Are you sure?" A finger sneaked up Double-D's shirt and began to circle his belly button.

"Y-Yes."

"Even if I do... This?" Double-D forced himself to stifle a gasp when Kevin's hand shoved itself down the front of his pants. The unexpected skin-on-skin contact made him dizzy with anticipation which could simply be because all of the blood in his head went to hang out in another place.

"Oh, my..." Double-D licked his lips; they had done many a things, sexually, but this was the first time they had done it in such a public place. In a bathroom nonetheless; his younger self would have experienced an aneurysm if he were to see this.

"You like this, don't you? You like getting touched in this filthy place?" Kevin hissed, his other hand squeezing Double-D's ass.

"I have to admit-" Squeezes. "Oh-" Touches. "My-" Kisses. "God-" Forbidden. "Fuck-" Dirty. " _Yessssss-_ "

"Good." He could almost feel Kevin's smile against his shoulder before the redhead removed his hands, flipped him around and shoved his tongue into his mouth. A sword fight was taking place as they pressed themselves against each other, the heat against their bodies being unbearable. Kevin moved back and grinned deviously. "Do something for me."

"Anything." Double-D whispered lustfully.

"..." Kevin growled and circled his lover, never breaking eye contact, before gently sitting down on the closed toilet lid. Double-D instantly got the hint but found himself cooling off when he saw the state of the floor. He quickly turned around to get a whole armful of paper towels from the dispenser behind him. Gurgling from the pipes was heard underneath him.

' _I can't believe we're doing this; the spell that boy has over me..._ ' Smiling to himself over how out of his comfort zone Kevin had taken him, he turned around and frowned. Kevin was gone.

"Kevin?" Double-D asked. The bathroom was quite small, and he had been standing in front of the door this whole time, so there weren't many places the jock could have hidden in. None even. The toilet rumbled, unnaturally so. "Kevin?" Double-D took a frightened leap back when the toilet lid sprang open and a familiar looking piece of headgear flew out, landing on the floor with a wet ***SPLAT***.

"'Scuse me." Came an almost gurgling voice from inside the lavatory pipes. Double-D stared dumbstruck at the toilet, mostly because he didn't have much else to actually be dumbstruck about. "Say, Eddward; you're looking a bit... flushed." The toilet lid flapped up and down wildly and the rushing sound of water coming from inside could, if one had taken a complete leave of senses, be misconstrued as laughter. Considering the possibility that he had had one cup of coffee too many and actually had taken a leave of his senses, Double-D spun around and began to frantically tug at the door handle.

Had the door actually opened in the inwards direction he was attempting to force the door into, it wouldn't have made much of a difference to the story in general apart from the fact that a lot more customers to the cafe feeling the urge to answer nature's call wouldn't get the door slammed into their faces. So, it's not much worth mentioning. What is worth mentioning is the fact that Double-D stopped his attempted escape when he heard his beloved's voice.

"Well? You're not thinking of backing out on me now, are you?" Double-D blinked twice and spun around. There was no armful of paper towels, no familiar red cap laying in a puddle of toilet water on the floor and there was a very much present young man, from whom the charged question had originated, sitting expectantly on the closed toilet seat, staring at him with famished eyes.

"I-" Finding himself at a loss of words and ridiculous confusion, Double-D opened and closed his mouth a few times. Should he inform Kevin of the fact that the redhead was for a brief second unreachable and essentially invisible? No, heavens no; the brainy Ed could likely be admitted to some form of institution solely on the count that he had seen the toilet spit up his boyfriend's red cap. Had it all been his imagination then? Possibly, possibly. Truthfully, he quite preferred the idea that he had simply drifted off into distant thoughts than to have lost his mind. Perhaps it was simply an excessive amount of caffeine causing this sudden lapse in judgement of reality? The thought would not be impossible.

Double-D sighed heavily, hanging his head with his eyes closed for the briefest of seconds before looking up. "I don't think that I should really-"

"Don't hit me, please!" A fearful plea got his full attention and he stared at the lavatory in absolute amazement. Kevin, whom had called Eddward into the bathroom, clamored to the toilet tank frantically, staring at him with confused and fearful eyes; not to mention the fact that this Kevin had braces, a pair of glasses and a book containing his favorite Shakespearean sonnets under his arm when he showed up to school.

"Kevin, I'm-"

"I'm not gonna hit you. _Dork._ " A muffled voice, not completely and entirely unlike that of Double-D's own, echoed throughout the enclosed space. As a matter of fact, had it not been for the fact that Kevin, the suddenly meek and frightfully shivering one, had flinched, Double-D would once again have summed it up to caffeine induced hallucinations. He would especially have considered this a possibility when the toilet in front of him spouted legs and stood up, sending Kevin sliding to the floor in a panicky little pile.

Arms soon sprung out on both sides of the cistern, arms that were quick to envelop the quivering Kevin. Hands grew as well, hands that began to snake around the redhead's body which squirmed uncomfortably in an almost silent and meek protest. Very soon, the only thing that remained made of porcelain was the toilet bowl itself and even that wasn't left untouched as it quickly turned into a head Double-D had seen in his dreams or, quite possibly, in a mirror while watching it from the right angle. A slightly taller, much fitter and more handsome version of himself, who had up until recently decided to stay an innocent toilet, shot him a smug smile before leaning down over the heavily bothered, nerdy Kevin who lay on the floor rocking back and forth in mortified panic.

"Hey there, _Dork._ " The quite impossible mix of sheer disgust and sickening love Double-D found in his doppelganger's tone sent him scrambling up to the door of the bathroom, as if a complete reversal of his and Kevin's personalities was the weirdest thing that had occurred so far.

Just as the tall, dark and handsome Eddward looked to be reaching out for Kevin's groin, Double-D found the door handle and twisted it violently, sending the whole door flying into the face of an innocent bystander as he hadn't really expected to succeed in opening the door with even the slightest of force. The department of illogical problems in Double-D's brain kicked itself into a higher gear and began to churn out ideas, one of which was to quite simply make his way to the exit and run as far as possible. Of course, after making sure that the bathroom door was closed firmly behind him, he realized a very simple, though often thought of, truth; this was all feeling rather familiar.

The feeling in question only grew once he stumbled into the indoors area of the cafe in his pursuit for people who could help him understand his unorthodox problem. Articulation for assistance, an ambulance, academics; anything to alleviate the- Alliteration? He shook his head to clear his racing thoughts and stared around the room, manically looking for the most helpful looking person with a cell phone. A young mother, no older than thirty-five by the looks of her clothes, would do.

"Ex-Excuse me; I am in dire need of-" Whatever Double-D was in dire need of, we'll never know, because his mouth quickly closed when the mother he had approached turned and showed her face.

"Hey, Sockhead; can't you see I'm feeding here?!" The annoyed, squinting eyes of his friend Eddy shot him a look before turning back to the baby and tilting the rest of his head forwards, releasing a stream of brownish liquid from the spout in the middle of his face. The baby accepted the nutritional beverage happily, gurgling as it drank.

"Oh, dear..." Double-D backed away slowly from the unholy female fusion of Eddy McGee and a teapot, reconsidering his mental state quite severely.

"Why, I never!" A snobbish looking woman a few tables over raised her shaded monocle to her eye and squinted menacingly. "In a public place!"

"Calm down now, dear; it's a natural thing." The table in front of her patted her reassuringly on the arm with one of its legs.

"I have- I have to-"

"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!" The frightened tone in Marie's voice snapped him out of it and he darted towards the exit, ignoring the increasing strangeness of the interior.

"Marie, what's-" Double-D stopped dead in his tracks and contemplated going back inside. Marie had jumped up on the table and looked on in astonishment a thousand cats, all wearing matching tanktops, were jogging through the cafe's outdoor area on their hind legs. The thing that caught his attention however was that half of them were wearing beanies very similar to his own while the other half were wearing red caps.

"MEOOOOOWWW!" He caught the glimpse of a teal paw that slowly sank down in between the masses of exercising cats. Once more he experienced the sensation that it was all very familiar.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?!" Marie yelled, staring down at the felines in horrified amazement.

"I'M NOT QUITE-" Double-D interrupted himself when he felt like the world had stopped. "Sure." 572 cats had slowed down to a complete halt and they were all staring at him with saucer sized eyes.

"Why, I never!" The snobbish woman let out an offended harrumph and moved her chair so she wouldn't have to watch such a surreal display and talk to her table in peace.

"What are they staring at?" Double-D's eyes darted back and forth across the sea of cats, unsure whether he would really escape all of this unscathed.

"... You've got a penguin on your head, Double-D."

"I have a _what_?" Double-D looked up at Marie, both looking equally bewildered.

"A penguin. One of those arctic fuckers."

"On my head?"

"On your head."

"How about that?"

A moment passed.

"I believe the cats are quite interested in the penguin."

"You think?"

"Yes." Another moment passed. In the blink of an eye, Double-D had scooped up the arctic bird from his head, noticed, processed and not cared that it was midnight blue, and thrown it with all his might. It soared through the air with the majestic grace a frying pan does February 15th and the horde of cats decided to collectively ignore the rules of whatever race they were running and chased after it on all four. Soon the area was deserted, sans one straggler pulling a fish shaped oxygen tank.

"What the hell was that about?" Marie jumped down from the table and laughed uncertainly, not knowing whether the situation was supposed to be funny or not.

"I have a sort of vague, nagging idea, but I can't really place it..."

"You know what I do in times like these?" A dapper young fellow piped up from behind a newspaper which he lowered and smiled at them. "I have a cup of tea to calm the nerves."

"Yeah, I'm gonna need some gin or something after whatever that was." Marie scratched the back of her head as she surveyed the destruction the cats had brought about. Chairs, tables, plants, elders; everything had been tossed about in the furry kerfuffle. Several cigarettes were lit.

"Trust me." The fellow winked. "You're going to need it." He gulped down the rest of his tea and took a firm hold of his newspaper. "Oh, and Eddward? Nice to finally meet you; the boss and Joe worked around the clock to create the new place. You're quite something." With that, he stepped smilingly into an article about obscure knitting patterns for violin warmers, leaving only the paper itself and his cup to prove he had ever been there in the first place.

"I'm missing something, something very..." Double-D grabbed at his beanie in frustration; the answer to what was going on seemed just out of his grasp. It was all so familiar, yet so far away. The cats running, seeing himself, or someone very similar, harass a meager Kevin, the tea, Joe; all pieces of a puzzle that just didn't add up.

"Did that guy just- Okay, that guy just disappeared." The blue-haired young woman began to calculate the amount of bars in a four-mile radius and how many would be open at this hour.

"Tea, we need tea. I'm not sure why, but we need it." Double-D mumbled to himself as he went back inside and waddled up to the counter, a small part of him grateful that the barista was still looking just as miserable as one would expect. "Could we have two cups of tea, please? Earl Grey will be just fine."

"Sure." The barista said unimpressed but nonetheless went on to prepare the order.

"Hey." Marie leaned in, completely ignoring Double-D's muttering. "You know any bars that're open?"

"What, now?" The barista shot her a disapproving look and Marie shrugged.

"Rough day."

"Ooookay." Placing the two cups and a small container of milk on the counter, she too leaned in and began pointing sluggishly with a pen. "There's The Apple, but I think that's closed for renovations... Yeah, I think your best bet's the dive bar over on 34th, opens around five-ish."

Double-D's eyes went wide as the box of the puzzle finally came into view and he tried to maintain his calm demeanor best he could. "Pardon, _what_ _time do they open?_ "

"Around five-ish."

"Of course. How could I forget?" The intelligent Ed cursed himself silently and shoved a panicked hand into his pocket and slammed the money down on the counter.

"Why, I never!"

"Come on, Marie; we need to go." Double-D grabbed both cups and walked out of the doors with a strained smile, Marie following with a confused demeanor.

"Yo, what's up?"

"Five- _ish._ "

"Yeah? You need a drink that bad?"

"Yes, that's what the tea is for." Double-D blew cautiously on his beverage as he sped up, leaving the perimeters of the cafe.

"Hey, where are you going?"

"I- It's- Tea." Double-D decided that an explanation would be best left for later. Providing there would be a later. He gave her a cup and wondered briefly if ice tea would have been just as acceptable.

"But what about Nazz and Kev- Did it just get brighter here?" Marie noticed that Double-D had taken on a yellowish glow and looked around curiously; everything was positively bathing in light.

"I think I know why." Double-D nodded towards the sky and Marie gasped.

"Whoa." In the middle of the sky hung the smiling, disembodied head of Nazz van Bartonschmeer, her twinkling eyes and bright smile illuminating the whole world in a way the sun would be jealous of. Half of Italy spontaneously combusted as she parted her lips to speak.

"Hey, guys!" The tremors that followed her cheery greeting split the sky in twain and grape flavored ink gushed out. Enormous rays showered the countrysides, sprayed the cities and stopped at the local libraries to recruit for their cause. Nazz however went on, completely oblivious of the inbound catastrophe. "I'm almost done so I'll be right there, you guys can order meanwhile!" With that, her head bobbed happily off into the horizon, leaving the sky a dark purple as the sky-bound crevice widened considerably and the ink flowed on to stain everything in its path.

"We should probably drink the tea." Double-D flung the teabag out of his cup, and into a brick wall that crumbled under the embarrassment of having been slapped with a bag of herbs. "I think it's our best bet."

"Our best- Dude, _are you not seeing this?!_ " Waves of ink ebbed in and covered up the whole street, rising with the average speed of a purebred Terrier name Paul from Portsmouth when there's codliver on the menu, and people were panicking; either impoverished writers getting into their cars to drive off in search of quills and parchment or the single men and women praying that the gorgeous sun goddess would return and at the very least show some leg. "I don't know what the hell is going on, but I don't think tea's the way to go! I still vote for 34th Street!"

"The only miracle we will find today will be the tea!" Double-D hissed through his teeth and drank down another mouthful.

"Hey, nice reference!" A dolphin swimming past on his way to hit up the beach jumped up and waved his flipper around approvingly.

"Marie, please." Double-D's free hand found hers and he looked pleadingly into her eyes. "I don't quite know myself what's going on, but if my suspicions are correct then the end of the world as we know it is imminent." Marie's eyes widened considerably in confusion and shock at this. "What I do know is that we will be better off drinking the tea than by not doing it. So please; trust me." The ink pooled around their knees as they both stood frozen, staring at each other. Marie sighed helplessly and shook her head sullenly; even if she wanted to, she surely wouldn't be able to reach 34th Street before the ink would be too high to wade through.

"You know I left my wallet and cigarettes at the cafe."

"... I'll buy you new cigarettes."

"You sure about this? The tea?"

"No."

"... Alright, fine. But if this doesn't work-"

"Hopefully it will."

"I'll kill you."

"Which I'm sure would be much more painful than whatever that rip in the sky has in store for us. Cheers." The two cups collided in a half-enthusiastic toast and they commenced with chugging their overpriced beverages. They were halfway through when the ink reached their chests. They had finished when Marie's head was the only part of her body not submerged. They were no longer concerned with the ink by the time their cups had hit the building behind them which crumbled to the ground in a blubbering mess, wailing about meanies and their habits of throwing things at you and disappearing without a word.

Fortunately, this was not the definitive end of humanity as the impoverished writers soon returned in huge ships of parchments when they had discovered that the reason they were hungry in the first place was that they were in the completely wrong trade. Soon, all the animals and humans of the world were brought aboard these finely constructed paper boats with manic scribbles about magical tea and running cats and all beings pondered on the meaning of these events. Was this karmic retribution for not taking better care of the planet? The wrath of a benevolent god of creativity who was not particularly keen of how music had been developing? Was it because of the shape shifting aliens which favored the form of badly made wigs for men of power? Nobody knew.

Whatever and whoever had caused this catastrophe had at the very least been kind enough to leave a message and as the sun rose over this newly formed ink blot on the cosmic canvas , and accidentally combusting a few ships when asking if anyone had seen a hairbrush the size of Jupiter, the crew of the International Space Station could make out a final, comforting message in the mountain tops of the world still visible that maybe someone, somewhere, was thinking about them.

 **WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE... AGAIN**

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 _Welcome to the latest version of the program. We had a feeling you would come back. Git._


	2. Welcome Back

In the beginning, there was nothing. However, as with most things, that got boring pretty quickly so the whole ordeal was dealt with over tea and biscuits where it was decided that the nothingness was just a waste of time for everybody involved, even if they were unsure whether or not they could even exist within the nothingness. Whichever way their existence went, they wrote a very stern letter to their congressman who, until being blackmailed with information about a homosexual lover did nothing, executed an order to have the nothingness bulldozed and replaced with a shopping mall. Of course, this turned into a lot more letter writing when the contractors explained it to be very hip and natural to have this big empty space and thus went on strike to protest the building of the mall. Truthfully, they were just terribly lazy and loathed their jobs.

While this massive debate of absolutely no importance was going on, a young child being dragged to cricket practice by a recently divorced mother who was not having any shit about 'not understanding the rules of the sport' felt rather bad for the nothingness, as it had literally nothing, while this girl at the very least had the cricket shoes on her feet; no matter how stupid she thought they looked. In this moment of pity, she produced forth the last quarter she had left of her allowance and tossed it in the nothingness' general direction and felt rather satisfied with herself when the whole thing exploded rather violently into a confused state of something. She would be sure to remember throwing money at other things the forthcoming week to see their reactions.

The state, quickly finding itself not to be something much special, sighed and went out to the pub where it drank four pints of Guinness before getting some sense and two adolescents beaten into it by a burly Irishman name Ahmed. Ahmed went door to door and sold door knobs, fulfilling his childhood dream of being in the most unappreciated and pointless line of work since the fellow in charge of banging rocks together to please the ears of listeners. Coincidentally, this person was the original discoverer of fire and was, in an ironic twist of lemon in a martini glass, later burned at a palm tree for being a witch.

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"Oh, god; what happened?" Marie slumped down to a seated position and grabbed her head, dizzy from the surprising change of location. One moment, the world had been ending around her, the next she was sitting in what appeared to be a white room stretching endlessly in every direction. Luckily, Double-D was still on his feet and seemed to be capable of being displeased enough with the situation for both of them.

"I knew it; I knew it would be this demented place again?" The beanie wearing Ed let out a sound, a morbid combination of a grim sigh and an exasperated groan, and gently clasped his face upon the realization that he had returned to one of the few places he certainly would not recommend for a family vacation.

"You see this place too?" Marie found her strength returning with each passing breath and she allowed herself a moment to observe her surroundings. Not that there was much to observe in this white, spaceless space.

"I see it, I feel it, I know it." Double-D looked left and right expectantly, as if waiting for a car to pass so he could cross the road.

"Hang on, you've tripped before?"

"What?"

"You've tripped so hard you've been to this place before?"

"Tripped?" Double-D blinked twice in confusion. "Are you suggesting I was to have willfully ingested or inhaled some sort of drug to-"

"No, that's what I'm asking you." Marie frowned. "So we're not tripping right now?"

"Not to my knowledge, no."

"So the world ended?"

"On some level."

"And we're dead?"

"Far, far worse, I'm afraid." Faint memories began to rapidly connect to their proper places in the brainy Ed's mind and he grew more and more irritated with each one popping up. "The only thing to do is wait."

"Wait for what?" Marie jumped to her feet and gave him a puzzled look. "Shouldn't we at least explore this place for some kind of exit? Find out how we got here?"

"No, we wait." Double-D said, a bit more sternly than he had intended to.

"For what?"

"Something to happen."

"Like what?"

"Like that, for example." Marie followed Double-D's gaze, which had landed upon the spot where she had been sitting a few moments previous, and she spun around. Her mouth fell open, unsure how to take this sudden development of events.

" _ **KANKER.**_ " A crudely designed robot, made from scrap metal usually found in a junkyard, sat in the exact same place and position she had been sitting, its head hanging sullenly, created using a toaster and Christmas lights. The single word it had uttered with its distorted, screechy voice echoed throughout the empty plains, causing a lemon tree to sneak in from another browser tab in the hope that the robot would speak again in that pleasant, inhuman tone.

"What." Marie was so flabbergasted by this, she didn't even bother to pose the word in the form of a question.

"Yes, this tends to happen." Double-D arched an eyebrow. Something about the robot felt all too familiar, yet seemed so distant, like trying to remember a dream you had three weeks prior to tea time.

"Where the _fuck_ are we?" A loud gasp was heard from the lemon tree which slumped over, using its branches to prop up what would be a tree's equivalent of a human chin.

"Look what you did now!" A creature, four feet tall with a purple striped body, fell out of the tree's foliage and threw an accusing glare in Marie's direction, which could very well have been nothing more than a regular glance; the creature's eyes were weighed down by enormous rainbow-colored eyebrows groomed into letters. It quickly jumped to the tree's side and started to massage its roots with maple syrup, granting him an appreciative groan.

"What the _hell_ are you supposed to be?" Marie completely ignored that the tree keeled over and landed on its side, moaning horribly in pain.

"Would you stop with the swearing?! And can't you read the eyebrows?!" The creature rolled its eyes and took a split second to race up to the Kanker sister, jump up into her direct eyesight to provide her with its name and race back to tap different places of the tree's bark with different kinds of satisfied "Ahs" and horrified "Hmms".

"You ever heard of something so _fucking_ ridiculous as a 'Flabbergast'?" Marie muttered the question to her human companion but the tree reacted nonetheless; flailing its branches around wildly and wailing loudly before collapsing completely.

"My word, he's saplining!" The Flabbergast hollered and pulled out an enormous ax. "CLEAR!" With a mighty swing, the ax connected with the bark and a large explosion followed, sending the sullen robot to spiral away into the distance and the two teenagers holding on to each other to avoid following the metallic creature's path. When they dared open their eyes again, the Flabbergast sat in a canoe; paddle in one hand, a jug of lemonade in the other and a deep frown weighing down his eyebrows even more. "I hope you're happy!"

"I haven't the faintest clue what is going on here so not really." Marie shrugged nonchalantly, taking all of this with a pinch of salt since she wasn't yet convinced they weren't just tripping balls.

"Well, you should consider somebody else's feelings for once then!" The Flabbergast raised the paddle to its mouth and blew violently, playing a clarinet solo of the 'Anvil Chorus' at double speed as the canoe rose and floated away, though not before dumping the container of lemonade over Marie's head.

"YOU LITTLE PIECE OF-"

"I would probably lay low on the swearing after what just happened." Double-D placed a comforting hand on Marie's arm as she shook her fist in the direction of the levitating canoe which soon disappeared off into the unknown.

"Didn't you see what the fu- What happened?!" Marie spun around, showering him with lemonade from her soaked hair, and gave him a pleading look, searching for some sort of sane explanation.

"All in due time; our host should arrive soon."

"I say- Oh, it's you!" A voice cried out behind them. Turning, they came face to face with a gigantic yellow machine suspended in midair, its engine purring pleasantly.

"A yellow submarine; how original." Double-D deadpanned. Marie on the other hand felt transfixed by the person who had addressed them who hanged out of one of the many circular windows; it was a spitting image of the Double-D standing next to her but very much differently dressed, much more leaning to the fashion favored by those in the Victorian era.

"Do you like it? Built it myself." The newly arrived Double-D patted the side of the seaworthy vessel. "I dare say, we appear to have taken a wrong turn somewhere; you wouldn't happen to know the way to Dimension 42? Lovely little shop on the corner of Penny Lane and Abbey Road, planet of Lucy in the area of Arcturus and the Boos?"

"Unfortunately not, no." Double-D replied, inwardly groaning at the barrage of references the universe would apparently use for the naming of places.

"Hmm, yes, I can understand that; our dials are having a jolly good time in here trying to figure out where we are relative to the spacetime continuum."

"SOCKHEAD! You figure out where we are yet?" An irritated voice shouted from within the submarine, so not unlike their friend Eddy McGee's that they weren't at all surprised when a copy of said Ed appeared in the window next to the goggle-wearing Double-D.

"No, I'm afraid we have encountered those who are even more lost in reality than we are." The steampunk inspired Double-D gestured to Double-D and Marie. The Eddy, whose clothes seemed to have originated from a crash between a '50s science fiction movie's wardrobe and the lost and found at the original Woodstock concert, glanced over at them and stared silently for a moment.

"Oh, HELL NO!" Eddy exploded and threw a threatening finger in his Double-D's direction. "WE'RE NOT GOING THROUGH THIS AGAIN! ED, FIRE HER UP; WE'RE GETTING THE HELL UP OUT OF HERE!" Eddy popped back in and slammed the window shut.

"Ah, it appears we must be off. Pleasure to meet you." The nautical Double-D offered them an apologetic smile.

"Likewise." Double-D mustered up a polite twitch of the corners of his mouth. Marie was still too shocked to speak. "Hope you find your destination."

"As I hope you will." With that, the submarine roared to life and shot off, looking like an arrow on fire before it blinked out of that particular level of existence.

"Right. Well, someone's bound to come along soon." Double-D, the one left standing there in the vast whiteness of the something, looked over at his friend, if such labels still existed, and hummed to himself.

"I give up." Marie threw her hands up in the air like she just didn't care anymore and started to walk away. "I'm just gonna pretend this is a dream and wait to wake up. That's what I'm gonna do."

"Before you embark on an adventure I'm fairly certain would lead to frustrated confusion and severe annoyance, would you do me a favor?" She stopped and sighed heavily.

"What?"

"Could you please search your pockets?" Double-D asked, having rummaged around in his own pants pockets and finding them disappointingly empty.

"Fine, whatever." Reluctant hands reached into the pockets of her hoodie, finding nothing noteworthy to speak of, and moved on to her pants. "Nothing; there's nothing in them, just like when I checked them before the world sorta- WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?!" She jumped back, as if that would somehow separate her from whatever it was she had felt inside her left pants pocket, and stared down at her leg with wide eyes. Double-D hurried up to her.

"What? What is it?"

"I don't know, but whatever it was, _it fluttered!_ "

"May I?" Double-D took her shocked nod as an approving answer and he slowly slid his hand into the aforementioned pocket. He smiled slightly as his finger made contact with what had frightened her. "Marie, I do apologize in advance for this."

"What? What?!"

"Is that a penguin in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" She turned her head and gave him a look questioning his remaining pieces of sanity.

"... Are you shitting me?"

"I would avoid the expletive alternative for 'excrement' in this place if I were you. But let's have a look, shall we?" Double-D took a firm grip of the object that rested snugly inside Marie's pants, a sentence which caused an unannounced breeze to go by carrying with the giggling of five fangirls, and pulled as hard as he could, sending him flying backwards when he finally succeeded. "This was unexpected. It's your wallet."

"Yeah, if it was covered in feathers." Sure enough, Double-D had produced forth the exact same model wallet that Marie had once had before the world had seemingly ended, except for the fact that it was fully decorated with pink feathers.

"Curious." An idea formed in his mind, one that normally would seem insane but most likely wasn't anymore. "I wonder if- There we go." He flipped the wallet open and they both, or at least Marie, looked on in mild surprise as a long strip of pink feathers unfurled itself, much like a rabbit's wallet sized family photographs would. The backside of the wallet let out a series of hacking coughs and took a deep breath. So deep, as a matter of fact, that the long strip of feathers inflated until the whole coin purse could be likened to the form of a flamingo.

"What the- You know what? I'm not even gonna ask."

"You're learning." Double-D released his hold of the bird's beak, having once been the backside of the wallet, and it flopped majestically to the ground. Finishing its breath, and coughing up enough feathers to make a pillow fit for a king of a self-proclaimed nation consisting of an IKEA brand pillow fort and a little shop on the corner, it bowed deeply to both of them. "You wouldn't happen to know where to find the custodian of this place?" Double-D asked.

"Did you just ask the flamingo where the janitor is? Hell, did you just talk to the flamingo?"

"I did indeed." He ignored her lack of illogical thinking and refocused his attention to the pink bird which nodded in response to his question. The flamingo balanced gracefully on one leg while the other reached up and combed through its feathers in search for something. Dropping the comb, which manically began to request a box full of floss with its newly formed tiny voice, the bird grabbed a hold of and held out a cup of tea. "Oh. Thank-" It completely disregarded Double-D's stretched out hand and turned the cup upside down, showering the comb with scalding hot tea. The comb leaned back unhurt in nostalgia though, having spent its summers as a young mustache wrangler for lava surfers.

"I say-" The flamingo held up a wing to interrupt Double-D and began to shake it violently, feathers falling off and floating downwards with soft sounding pops. One feather in particular took an instant liking to the tea soaked comb and made a dive for it, resulting in a breathtaking collision of such romantic proportions that a devout group of nuns in a small Italian village felt the repercussions in the form of a slight tingling in their hats. The result?

"Right, are you telling me this is what we were waiting for? A mustache?" Marie crossed her arms and blinked her eyes tiredly, the process of constantly trying to update one's current version of reality quickly wearing her out.

"Partially." The flamingo bowed deeply and promptly turned into a metal bucket which tumbled over and spread out its contents across the area which they were standing on. The tea that had been spilled didn't remain spilled for long though as the result of the aforementioned romantic encounter, a very stylish and very pink mustache, was quick to soak it all up. Having contained the spillage, it jumped up into the air and landed on the face of a weather-worn old man, drenched in tea from head to toe, who frowned slightly.

"I gotta get me a new alarm." He reached into his dark blue jumpsuit and pulled out a deck of cards, discarding more than half of them by tossing them over his shoulder where they quickly assembled into a house big enough for seventeen fratboys and a donkey. Kicking the bucket into a standing position, he dropped the remainder of the cards into it where all of them melted together into a liquid almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea. He took notice of the two out-of-place looking youngsters, one with blue hair and a gaping mouth while the other wore a beanie and a bemused expression, and squinted. "Oh. Someone will be with you shortly."

"Yes, Joe; I'm familiar with the procedure." Double-D extended a hand out of habitual politeness. The man, Joe, examined it for a moment before shaking it gruffly.

"Didn't think I'd see you again, Eddward."

"Nor I you, Joe." Double-D gestured to his companion. "This is Marie Kanker. Marie, Joe."

"Pleasure." Joe nodded curtly in Marie's direction and held up the metallic bucket. "Cup of tea?"

"What; drink that?" Marie's upper lip curved in disgust.

"We'll pass, thank you."

"Suit yourselves." The janitor shrugged and proceeded to empty the contents of the bucket out over the surface one could almost mistake for a floor, took off his fabulous pink mustache, extended a handle from it and began to mop. Absentmindedly, he began to rummage around in his pockets and pulled out a packet of Jammy Dodgers. "He's rather busy, but here's his calling card."

"Okay?" Double-D accepted the packet and turned it over, looking for some sort of clue to guide him through the uncertainty of the situation.

Joe sighed drearily. "Open it, put one in front of you and follow the instructions."

"You're on your own here." Marie said, reaching for her pockets before hesitating; who knew if her cell phone would turn up and decide to turn into a vampire alligator or a herd of stampeding bison?

"Very well then." Double-D carefully opened the packet and took one of the biscuits out. Observing both front and back of it, he did indeed place it in front of him, where it was dutifully suspended in midair, and pushed it much like one does a button, having followed the inscription which did indeed read 'PUSH ME'. A * _ding_ * rung out from nowhere in particular and a soundbite of a smooth jazz song followed, giving the impression of an elevator in an upscale hotel.

"Seriously, I'm about to punch somebody if we don't get somewhere soon." The blue-haired teen aimed a frustrated kick at nothing in particular, causing the crudely designed robot they encountered earlier to soar through the air with a hurt " _ **KANKEEEEEER!**_ " as it didn't take lightly on being called 'nothing in particular'.

"I believe a suitable target for your frustrations will be with us shortly." Another * _ding*_ marked the end of Double-D's sentence like punctuation and the space in front of them slid apart to reveal the inside of an elevator. A man, much younger in appearance and clothing than Joe, stumbled out of the doors and quickly spun around, frantically waving the sword in his hand against a barrage of knife wielding tentacles. Every other metallic twang was followed by him frantically ranting into his watch.

"No, I told you- Bloody hell, almost got me- It's not- I'm just- WOULD YOU STOP EATING THOSE DAMN RAISINS?!" Dodging a particularly energetic appendage, he noticed his surroundings for the first time and frowned. "This isn't my floor."

"Hello, Ish." Double-D waved, seemingly unimpressed by the curious battle going on.

"I'll call you back, unexpected development." Ish lunged and drove the tentacles back through the doors before placing a heavy kick on the Jammy Dodger which shattered into a fine crystal powder. The doors closed, upwards, with the sound of a zipper and a pained yelp when one of the tentacles got stuck. Resting on the sword, the strange young man extended a gloved hand towards Double-D. "I swear, say you want to write and they end up sending you here... You're the one from before? You know, with Kevin and the tea?"

"I am becoming convinced of it, yes." Double-D grabbed the hand and shook it.

"Welcome back. As you can see, business as usual."

"This what we've been waiting for?" Marie arched a skeptic eyebrow; whatever problems they were having, she didn't expect this guy to be the solution.

"Ish, this is Marie."

"Well aware." Ish nodded politely and smiled pleasantly. "How do you do?"

"Expletive alternative for excrement." Marie shot back.

"Marie, this is Ish. He sort of..." Double-D turned to Ish in confusion. "What exactly is it you do here?"

"Nobody knows." Ish paused. "Seriously, my business card reads ' **Nobody knows** '." Ish folded the sword into a sheet of paper that read in a feverish lime green:

 **IT'S NOT IMPORTANT**

 **(Well, the name's John, but it's not important. I've also been known as "that self-inserting asshole", "Gary Stu" or just a plain old "asshole". So call me Ish)**

 **NOBODY KNOWS**

 **FLYWHEEL, SHYSTER AND FLYWHEEL**

"I believe you."

"Hang on." Marie interjected and held up her hands. "You're in charge here?"

"Indeed I-" Ish's answer was quickly cut short when Marie's furious fist connected with his jaw, catapulting him a couple of feet into the air where he then promptly stayed.

"What the flying _fuck_ is wrong with you?!" She grunted and swatted away the group of foulmouthed, amorous flies that appeared. "What in God's name caused you to be so fucking twisted that you'd come up with something like this?!"

"Boredom, mostly." Ish said, rubbing his sore face. "So, Double-D, I presume you haven't given her the rundown of this place?"

"No, I thought I would leave that honor to you." Double-D said bemusedly.

"You knew she was gonna sock someone, didn't you?"

"It was a possible outcome, yes."

"You're too kind to grant me that pleasure."

"Look!" Marie interrupted the two and put up a threatening finger. "There's gonna be another knuckle sandwich coming someone's way if you don't start talking!"

"The short answer? This is Limbo."

"You said we weren't dead!" Marie's finger focused menacingly on Double-D who calmly shook his head.

"We aren't."

Ish climbed down a foot or so but stayed defiantly in the air, leaning against the big toe. "The slightly longer answer, but still short enough so not to bore those who have read ' _Rusty Worn Nut_ '-"

"Shameless plugging doesn't suit you, Ish." Double-D rolled his eyes.

"Fine, fine." Ish sighed and reached down to untie his shoe which he swiftly removed and impatiently spoke into. "Miss Vu?"

"Yes, Mr. Flywheel?" A thin, nasal voice escaped the sneaker.

"Could you pull the file on my previous encounter with Peach Creek inhabitants and-"

"Certainly, Mr. Flywheel." The voice responded instantly.

"Lights, please!" The environment complied with Ish's request, the white dimming to a dull gray, while his shoe promptly turned inside out, reshaping into a midnight blue sphere which jumped out of his hands and floated freely in the air.

"Double-D?" Marie asked under her breath.

"Yes?"

"You realize how ridiculous this is, right?"

"All too much."

"Oh, but that's the beauty of it, kids." Ish stared up at the now rotating sphere and grinned widely, as if it was the most beautiful thing he had ever witnessed. The sphere chirped, reached out and swallowed the three youngsters. Joe grumbled about peace and quiet. He received an invitation to their wedding the following week.

* * *

 _"This... Is Limbo." Ish, Double-D and a very bored looking Kevin were seated at a large table, seemingly in the space they had just left._

 ** _"Marie, listen!"_** _Ish's voice echoed around her, though not originating from the Ish sitting in front of her. Marie tried to turn her head but found that she had lost it in all the commotion of being eaten by Ish's shoe. So, she followed the instruction and listened since the mouth she would usually use to tell him to go fuck himself was otherwise occupied with being just as lost as her head._

 _"We're dead?!" Double-D, the seated one, spat out a sip of tea. She couldn't really make out where her version of Double-D was either so she made a mental note to lay some serious hurt on Ish if they made it out of there._

 _"Let me tell you, this feels more like hell." Kevin said flatly. Marie felt the need to agree with him._

 _"Oh, no, no, no; not that sort of Limbo." Ish waved his arms around and laughed shortly. "We just call it that because of limbo nights on Tuesday. No, this is the space that contains everything existing between those split seconds before an idea and the final touches on a story."_

 _"I'm not following." Kevin muttered, trying his best to stay awake._

 _"This place is essentially a creative nebula; ideas and plans are born here. Some develop into these massive creatures with lives of their own and escape, some wither up in abandonment here over time and some are just plain stuck here from the get go. Anything can happen here, if you have the willpower to try." Ish smiled apologetically and stirred his tea with a pen he pulled out from behind his ear. "Of course, you were never meant to return here as you and your story had already escaped once. Quite an unusual case. Not unheard of, but unusual."_

 _"So what happens to us then?" Double-D wondered. "Is there any way of us... 'escaping' again?"_

 _"Oh, if there is, we shall find it. It might take a little while, but we shall find it."_


	3. The Insanity at the End of the Tunnel

" _That concludes the audio-visual tour. Please, stay on the square disc until you reach a certain level of reality you can comprehend._ " Marie's eyes shot open and for a few seconds, everything made sense in the universe. Her life, her future, her relationships with friends and loved ones; all pieces of a puzzle that finally fell into place. Then she saw Ish standing in front of her, cocked her arm back and threw a punch, disconnecting her fist from her arm which launched full force into Ish's face, tossing the young man dangerously close to the edge of the disc.

"ENOUGH WITH THE BULLSHIT, HOW DO WE GET OUT OF HERE?!" The bluenette reattached her fist to her wrist and glared daggers at the collapsed man who swiftly rolled to the left to avoid a horrible stabbing accident.

"We are on our way out now as a matter of fact." Ish mumbled and rubbed his jaw, gesturing around them with the other hand. It was then Marie noticed their surroundings; a tunnel of rotating pictures stretching off into an infinite point in the distance, each picture displaying a window into a possible existence. The midnight blue disc they were traveling forth on moved just slowly enough that if she focused hard, she could pick up some of the words being spoken.

" _How'd you do? I see you've met my-_ " A spitting image of Marie, had she been a man who was really into makeup, strode down a large staircase while wearing a long, high-collared cape. He stopped momentarily and stroked the shoulder of what appeared to be a balding Eddy shoved into a suit three sizes too small. " _\- faithful handyman._ " The man-Marie turned his eyes towards the middle of the hall where, surrounded by strange party goers, stood a shivering Nazz and an even meeker looking Double-D than she was used to seeing. Must've been the thick glasses he was wearing. The picture flowed out of her line of sight and she found another one on her right.

The first thing she noticed was that Eddy was wearing black nail polish. The second thing was Double-D's ridiculously fabulous striped scarf. The third thing was that they were shoving thick bundles of paper and posters torn from the walls into a trash can, all while complaining about being cold, unemployed and paying rent. Just as they tossed a lit match into the metal container, the focus shifted from their loft to the street outside where Ed lay beaten, robbed of his jacket and dignity. Marie looked away; there was just something about that guy's innocence that made her have a soft spot for him. She then found a third one.

It was a simple scene, one that she could vaguely recognize as being set in Ed's backyard. The young man in question and May were seated on a raggedy old blanket with textbooks strewn out around them, though in this moment it would appear that they were more focused on each other. A jam jar containing what looked like a very generous urine sample rested between two half full wine glasses. Ed looked down about something May had said and mumbled something in response before the straw haired Kanker continued. " _But I really didn't hear a fucking word that you just said._ " Ed shone up in a bright smile and lunged for the girl, happily embracing her while he laughed wholeheartedly. Marie could still hear May joining in even as she saw the picture float away.

" _Shameless plugging detected._ " The cool voice said, emanating from the floating disc, and Ish convulsed in pain when an electric field momentarily jolted across him. " _Behavior corrected._ "

"Not a good start to the chapter." Ish flipped over on his back and groaned heavily.

"Hello again." Marie spun around at the sound of Double-D's voice and the young inventor waved pleasantly.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Momentarily sidetracked, one might say." Double-D took a few steps forward to help Ish up. "I have something for you."

"Aim for the gut in that case; I don't think my face can take much more."

"Oh, no; it's this." Out of his back pocket, Double-D pulled out a curved brown stick at the sight of which Ish jumped back and was yet again close to falling off the disc.

"No, no, no; I know what that is! Get that boomerang away from me!" Ish ducked behind Marie and peered over her shoulder like a frightened child who meets a rubber-masked Santa Claus during Easter. "I'm gonna turn into a sociopath, _I just know it_!"

"Hang on, what's that?" Marie pointed at the boomerang.

"It reverses people's personalities if you touch it!" Ish popped up to hiss before ducking back down again.

"Yeah, you'll probably just become normal then."

"No worries, Ish; it's all tapped out." Double-D smacked the wooden artifact against his palm twice. "You told me to hold on to this."

"I did?" Ish stepped out from behind Marie and frowned in confusion. Tryingly, he touched the tip of the boomerang and took it when nothing happened. "Did I say what to do with it?"

"Toothpicks." Double-D surveyed their surroundings with the mild sense of surprise an octopus displays when a clothing store doesn't carry their size of arm. "I suppose this is the way out?"

"Indeed." With one last look of curiosity, Ish tossed the boomerang to the side where it dripped right through the disc. "All of these images you see swirling around us represents possibilities. Stories untold-"

" _Alright, ye' scallywags!_ " The feared Pirate Captain Eddy McGee bellowed out as he stalked over the deck, smacking his first mate over the head.

"- stories never thought of-"

" _So... What do we do now?_ " Lee Kanker fiddled nervously with the hem of her dress; she still couldn't believe that she was in the car of school quarterback Plank Wood. The strong, quiet type, if a bit stiff. Could this be the night?

"- dialogue and scenarios abandoned because its all just too ludicrous-"

" _No thank you, Sire; I desire not one more drop of gravy._ " Baron Edwin Beefington of the Beef Dip Beefingtons, heir to the great Chicken on Rye Toast Corporation, whispered with a sense of superiority, confident in knowing that his underwear were decorated with the Beefington insignia, and the whole courtroom gasped heavily. The judge, His Lordship Eddward van Marion von Cactishire af Eddison, clutched at his chest and his lover, the crack ace journalist Kevin Brown PhD. MD. DDS. BS. BA. BMS. DW., rushed to his side to swear vengeance on that nefarious Saint Lord Father Bishop of Uttoxeter Edward McGee the Honorable who had surely poisoned the royal lemon tart ordered by the Higher Upper Over Council Mistress Nazz-

"Alright, alright; we get it." Marie threw her arms in the air and scoffed, interrupting the narrative completely and causing a tiny red string to join several other thousands decorating the hem of a silk curtain somewhere in the deepest bowels of Limbo, all waiting to get tugged to unravel their individual, interrupted history.

"Ish, before we depart though, I must ask; why did we end up here?" Double-D tapped his chin in thought. "Last time, if my memory serves me correct, Kevin and I came to Limbo partly because we managed to continue a story that had no continuation and thus caused about the end of the world-"

"Wait, _what_?!" Marie exclaimed, shocked to hear that bringing about Armageddon was a reoccurring thing in Double-D's life.

"Long story."

"It's called ' _Rusty Worn Nut_ ' and it's actually not that long; I think it's- GAAAH!" An electrical field reached up from the disc and spread out over Ish's body, sending the young man to his knees in pain.

" _Shameless plugging detec-_ "

"Alright! I won't mention it again!" Ish sat down and sighed drearily, not even paying attention to the fact that his attire was smoking. "You were saying?"

"Oh, yes." Double-D coughed. "Partly because the world ended and partly because you wanted to have some sort of back and forth with us to sort out and make clear your position on the whole 'KevEdd situation'."

"The what?" Ish rolled his eyes at Marie's question and rummaged around in his pockets until he found a small, black disc which he threw to her.

"Press the button." While Marie did just that, and a holographic window shot up from the disc to display thousands upon thousands of pages of stories in front of her darting eyes, Ish turned his head to Double-D. "Right, the idea from the beginning was to do something similar with the two of you to not appear too biased. To sort of analyze the cliches and pitfalls of writing Edd/Marie."

"Hooooly shit, have you- _Have you guys seen all this fucking porn?!_ " A wide-eyed Marie quickly pressed the button again and the holographic window shot up once more.

"You mean along the lines of instant forgiveness for years of torment, wrongful characterization to meet an end goal, the troubled youth Marie in need of rescuing-"

"Seriously, can I keep this?" Marie eagerly pressed the button again and licked her lips. "Our internet is shit compared to this filth fest!"

"You are correct." Ish got back up on his feet and offered Double-D a crooked smile. The brainiac shook his head and Ish swiftly threw the smile over the edge. "Then I realized, much like the last time we spoke, that many of the issues I could think of weren't exclusive to the Edd/Marie fandom."

"I remember that." Double-D nodded.

"Besides, I'd rather leave the criticizing to my fellow author BarthVader; I hear he's become quite infamous for it, even when he's not doing anything." Ish laughed shortly and fell quiet, the only sound now heard was the low pitched humming of the disc and Marie pressing the button over and over again.

"Therefore there must be something else you wanted to talk about."

"Quite right, quite right." Ish sighed and sat down at the edge, facing away from them. "I've had this... Feeling lately. I'm not sure what to do with it."

"Elaborate." Double-D sat down next to the young man, albeit not as close to the edge.

"I feel like quitting. Writing, here, that is." Ish stated flatly, staring at nothing in particular. "I've said it before, I've quit two or three times, but there has always been this feeling, you know? I knew, somehow, that it wouldn't be forever. I would come back, I would finish up all of this shit I've started and completely ignored to start new shit that I would then have to finish and so on."

"But you don't feel like that now?"

"No." Ish said. "It's weird. Some part of me feels like I would be just fine with getting up and leaving everything here the way it is. I would look back and wish I had done more, sure, but I wouldn't regret the decision."

"Perhaps that is the right one to make then." Double-D smiled softly and reached out to place a comforting hand on the young man's shoulder but recoiled in horror when he remembered that he had once managed to utterly destroy two separate planes of existence by doing so.

"Sick of perhaps." Ish groaned and leaned back. "Maybe it's time though. I have gone through most of the regular author tropes; snotnosed little brat with horrendous grammar and plot, newbie ripping off others' work unsuccessfully, rising up by diving deep into the angst pool, running rampantly with romance, getting closer to good grammar by ripping off/getting inspired by other people's work, mostly music this time, reshaping my most popular story to suit my then current writing style. I wrote a hilarious troll fic the ending of which I don't think anyone saw coming and I finally wrote the thing I would want to be remembered by."

"Quite a career."

"Wouldn't want it any other way. There has been no greater English teacher to me than this site. I'll be forever thankful for finding it."

"What're you two going on about?" Marie slumped down on Ish's other side and tossed the small, black disc into his lap. "Button's broke."

"Thinking of quitting this business. I do have other things to write outside of here, besides; I feel like all this has gotten rather repetitive."

"Aight, so just do it, don't drag us into this." Marie dangled her legs over the edge. "Seriously, stop complaining and go if you want to."

"Marie, show some consideration!" Double-D exclaimed.

"Why?" Marie shot Double-D a look. "It's not like he owes anyone anything and from I've gathered it's sorta clear that he's growing apart from whatever weird fandom he's a part of. I mean, this is what, the closest he's gotten to writing anything in six, seven months?"

"She's right, you know." Ish nodded. "The thing is, most of the people who I want to write for and finish my stories for aren't around anymore. I'm not saying that I wouldn't write for anyone who reads my stuff now, I'm always grateful and utterly amazed when that happens. It's just that with stories like ' _Choices_ ', ' _Detest_ ' and whatever old story I haven't finished, I wrote it for a fandom that's no longer around. I'm still surprised to see that there are old dogs who've been around here longer than I and it never fails to make me smile. It really felt like something else back then."

"Might just be nostalgia talking." Marie shrugged.

"True." Ish picked up the small, black disc, studied it for a while and tossed it over the edge. "Most of all though, I wrote them for me. Everything I've ever written are things that I wanted to read and can still go back and enjoy reading, even if the grammar throws me way off. At the end of the day, I'm not the same person. Which is good, of course, but that means in terms of writing that it's difficult to continue writing ' _Yellow Submarine_ ' or ' _SpeakEdboxxx_ ' because even if I know how both stories play out and end, I have no real desire to continue as I feel they're no longer my stories. I remember when I wrote them, just before I quit for almost all of '013, and it's just nowhere near the level, creatively or mentally, that I am at today. There was something special in each one of those moments and I just rolled with it. That's why I like to think that my one-shots are superior to anything else I wrote because they're bottled and capped in that one moment."

"I wish you'd put a cap in it." Marie grumbled; she was really getting sick of whatever personal crisis the weirdo next to her was having and wishing she'd remembered her cigarette pack.

"It's understandable, of course. Time moves on and so must we." Double-D stretched out and shifted positions.

"Yeah, not like I thought seven years could just pass by and things would be the same. I just never thought it'd be me, you know?" Ish mused. "I always thought that I'd run out of here, middle fingers raised to all the doubts I ever held, and just seeing everything completed. I never thought I'd be another one to abandon stories. I'd look at Easymac120 and KiltedEngineer and think 'That's the kind of drive force I want, to just plow through and complete a masterful adventure'. Or at the very least stay sort of consistent and on point, like RachelZimon with ' _Immoral_ '. It's all individual of course."

"You don't have to leave, you know."

"I know. All of this is all just in my head, so far; I'm not saying this is my swan song." Ish jolted into an upright position. "Good lord, could you imagine? KevEdd lemony territory leading into a rancid heap of nonsense followed by some loose complaints about getting older and some sappy sentimentalism?! As a last goodbye?! I SAY NEVER!" He grabbed a hold of his companions' shoulders and pushed himself up, raising a fist. "I may not finish everything I've started, I may just post all the shit I've had backed up for the last couple of years or I may do something completely different, but I will NOT go down with the ship!"

"What ship?" Marie asked flatly.

"The KevEdd ship of course!" Like a lightbulb in the darkest night, Ish's lips stretched out into a bright grin. "If I'm going out, I'm gonna show them how it's done!"

"I think you're getting a bit too much air right now, Ish." Double-D scrambled to his feet and raised an eyebrow.

"You're right." Ish deflated, only the slightest, before shining up again. "But you better believe I'm not going down without a fight. GORDON!" The middle of the disc began to drip upwards until a floating, midnight blue penguin was fully formed. It honked. "Take us out of here; drop me off on in Sector IV, sixth floor, and these two in..." He turned to Double-D and Marie who were waiting on what would come next; one mostly patient and one considering throwing another punch to see what would happen to the penguin. "Where do you want to go?"

"Pardon?" Double-D asked politely, finding it easier and easier to suppress the ever growing annoyance over Ish and his surroundings.

"Last time, Limbo sort of imploded on us so I had to improvise your destination hence why you ended up in an obviously unstable location. This time however-" He gestured at the swirling images around them. "Any place, any time, any setting. Say the word."

"Fucking hell." Marie groaned and cupped her face in irritation; was there ever an easy solution with this guy?

"No, I don't think you wish to go there. And no, there's not." Ish winked. "Double-D?"

"I think 'Home' would be sufficient enough, wherever that might be."

"Home, coming right up!" Ish poked the penguin's stomach and the whole disc stopped dead. Double-D barely managed to notice that the streams of images around them had reached their end before darkness engulfed them.

"What now?" Marie's voice cut through.

"Why, you're going home. The only way to do so is to get shot out of this cannon."

"Of course it is." Double-D sighed wearily; he imagined quite the headache would follow this.

"See, the cannon is the source of all these alternate realities. This is where it all comes from. Limbo, The Tunnel; it's all just useless without it."

" _Homophonic play on words detected._ " The cool voice rang out around them. " _Have a lollipop._ " Marie and Double-D found that a lollipop had appeared in each of their hands. The former groaned.

"Can we get the hell out of here now?" The annoyance in Marie's voice resonated through the tempered metal of the cannon and a scent of raspberries filled the air.

"Quite so. Gordon?"

" _Thank you for traveling by cannon. Please, hold on to your asses._ "

As their reaction times where nowhere near the capacity needed to take in what followed, all the three saw was a bright, blinding light. Therefore, they never saw the cannon; a metallic marvel floating freely in imagination's dastardly depths. The firing launching a million sparks of creativity across the cosmos and into the minds of children worldwide where it would settle into the fresh, untainted soil of their minds and grow relentlessly until a united people could cry out and revolt against the bitterness of art critics. The images they soared past at ridiculous speeds, possibilities as a result of choices within and without their control that unraveled themselves against compressed trees and electronic canvases. How Ish veered slightly to the left with a cunning smile of things to come with a pen and pad while the two Peach Creekers crashed straight into a picture of a crudely painted rubber duck eating a jawbreaker.

* * *

The whole table nearly flipped over as the two teenagers' bodies jerked in their respective chairs. Two lollipops shattered upon crashing into the hard concrete plates and confused eyes of the surroundings landed on the disoriented pair for a moment before going back to whatever conversations they had been having. The sun shone down on the small cafe with its warming, kind rays.

Marie thought that the closest parable to her current state was to have been beaten up by a centipede swinging its whole sock supply full of quarters. Then she thought that would be a ridiculous thing to say so she settled on the second best. "Whoa."

"Takes some getting used to." Double-D looked around with a delirious look. "I believe we are... Home."

"Home is good. I like home. Home makes sense." Noticing the table, Marie lunged and drained the cup of coffee placed out in front of her. "Home has coffee."

"Yes, it would certainly appear so." Double-D felt his pocket vibrate and he sluggishly reached for his cell phone, discovering that he had two texts waiting for him. The first was from an unknown number though judging by the amount of digits, he had a sneaky suspicion who it was.

 **From: *long string of numbers***

 **"Hello again!**

 **If you made it this far: No, I haven't lost it. If anything, you must have for reading this far.**

 **This was indeed supposed to continue in the spirit of Rusty Worn Nut; at first by** **dissecting Edd/Marie and later replacing that idea with another bash at KevEdd. If that's what you were looking for or expecting, I apologize but can instead recommend 'The KevEdd Problem' by Aklaino2k7 which is quite a good guide to the ins and outs of writing KevEdd that isn't incredibly blasphemous.**

 **Over Christmas, I did however come to the realization that while I have never really been involved in the community apart from publishing my works, as the amount of time I dedicated to reading fanfiction as opposed to writing it dwindled over time, I became discouraged from even starting to try after returning to FF dot net about six months after the outbreak of KevEdd. It's not that I don't like you, and it's not the pairing in itself; it's just that I'm an impatient man. There's the thing about wading through 90% of shite to get to the 10% of Chunky Puffs; I could never do that. I'm still amazed that I managed to pick up a few people over the years who supported me or with whom I've exchanged messages with. Jamie, Barth, Phoenix, Splendente, Ravenous, writer-person; the list goes on.**

 **Even if I've been standing quietly on the sidelines, piping up every now and then before returning to the water cooler, I dare say that when looking upon what the fandom has become after everything KevEdd, I don't want to continue. I'm not saying it's overall good or bad thing to have happened (but take a wild guess where I stand), it's just a reminder that times and people change. I want to write, I will always write, but I don't want to write this. Not for long at least. So, yes; you just read through three chapters of fucked up shit just to find that some guy, who you might never have heard about before or don't even care about, is hitting up the beginning of the end. Hope it was worth it!**

 **Yeah... One could say I'm gonna retire because of KevEdd, one could say I'm just outgrowing doing this. Either way, it's time to get writing. That's what it's all about.**

 **Moral of the story? Write whatever the fuck you want, whenever the fuck you want, as long as you yourself would read it. Keep at it and get better. Don't lose sight of what's important. Read 'Rusty Worn Nut'.**

 **Peace."**

"This guy has issues." Marie looked up after having read the text as well and made a spinning motion at her temple.

"There are definitely some unresolved problems, I will give you that." Double-D reclaimed his phone and opened up the second text.

 **From: Kevin**

 **"Hey, were running late, mcgee smashed a damn window and the principal went off his rocker. Pray we dont all get detention."**

"It would appear a party consisting of at least Kevin and Eddy are delayed due to some window related antics; they will be possibly be here soon." Double-D scratched his temple in thought.

"Hey." Marie picked up an abandoned cigarette packet from the table that was almost identical to the one she'd left behind and eyed it suspiciously "Our world ended, right?"

"It appeared so, yes."

"And you ended your world before that?"

"Correct."

"So... Neither of us are in our home dimensions or whatever? We're practically homeless people intruding here?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Huh." Silence fell upon the two as Marie lit up a cigarette and Double-D looked up at the clouds in thought.

"I wonder what's different here."

Marie tilted her head. "What d'you mean?"

"Well-" He picked up the coffee cup in front of him a took a careful sip. It filled him with reassurance that safety was a concept no longer foreign. "In the first world, _my_ world, Kevin and I weren't together on a romantic level. You and Nazz had barely had a polite conversation by that time. The only connection between that world and the next was that Ed had written an erotic story about me and Kevin."

"KevEdd." Marie chortled out a puff of smoke. "I'm sure gonna miss that deranged porn."

"Yes, quite." Double-D rolled his eyes. "The point is that when we arrived in, well, _your_ world, the two of us together was the most obvious thing in the world. Over time, we simply forgot ever having come from somewhere else."

Marie coughed in surprise and leaned forward. "Wait, you're telling me I might not even be with Nazz in this world or whatever?"

"It is a possibility, I'm afraid." Double-D offered her a comforting smile.

"Huh." Marie took a deep drag off the cigarette and frowned. "Tell you what then. If it turns out that we're, I don't know, straight in this here place, I'll teach you how to eat muff like a pro and you'll teach me to suck dick." Coffee flew everywhere.

"MARIE!" Double-D spluttered, gasping for breath. "That is _highly_ inappropriate conversational material!"

"What?" She offered him a devious grin that could light up the darkest of rooms. "Come on, I've heard some of the things you guys've been doing; you think moans like that can't travel through tent walls?"

"... I told him that night would come back and bite me in the ass."

"Don't mind if I do."

"For the love of- You were attracted to the opposite gender not one hour ago!"

"I blame the air in this place." As the teasing continued, and the smoke from Marie's cigarette rose high into the sky, all was well in the small community of Peach Creek and mostly everyone involved could surely claim that nothing of importance had really been written at all.


End file.
